The invention relates to sheetlike absorbent materials capable of expanding in one coordinate direction at least to create room for the increased volume due to imbibition of liquid to be absorbed.
Absorbent materials are more particularly needed in connection with disposable articles such as, for example, baby diapers, incontinence products and femcare hygiene, or in the sector of absorbent articles for packaging and food technology. This function is traditionally performed by suitable combination products comprising pulp, superabsorbent granules or fibers and liquid-distributing layers comprising synthetic nonwovens, pulp or cotton.
The consumption of raw materials and packaging materials and also the outlay needed for raw materials and for manufacture and sales should be minimized as far as possible both economically and ecologically as well as from the sustainability perspective. As far as the production of hygiene articles is concerned, this means primarily a reduction in primary energy requirements, pulp, transportation volume, packaging films and cardboard and waste volume.
Numerous projects are known in the field of hygiene articles, not only from the literature but also from industrial manufacture, seeking to partially or completely replace the absorbency of cellulose/pulp by using granules of water-absorbing polymers (superabsorbents). It is technically, economically and ecologically desirable for, for example, modern baby diapers or adult incontinence articles to be completely converted to pulp-free absorbent pads in order that the influence of using disposable articles on climate change may be kept as small as possible.